After our race on Sunday morning, Reagan and I had a very long and relaxing visit with Piper. For some reason, all of the photos that I took, came out looking like Piper was groggy and sad. She probably was groggy. She definitely wasn’t sad though. Just the same, I thought that if she could talk, she probably wouldn’t want me posting those shots of her, not looking like her normal princess self.

After our visit with Piper, we met up with some friends of ours (John and Kat), who are visiting from SC. Reagan knows John from HS. We spend the evening palling around lower Manhattan, since it was so nice out.

Highlights included a jumping contest on the benches at the Battery Park City Promenade.

^–Reagan’s Jump

^—John’s Jump

^—My Jump (shot by Reagan)

Kat also had a pretty impressive jump. But the lighting was throwing off the AF, so it came out all blurry. I’m retarded.  More photos of this outing are here.

Our new running club had it’s first club points race, last weekend. Our friend Zach Tolbert came out and shot the race for us. It was perfect weather and a lot of fun. Becca was totally on the ball, with getting our jerseys made and delivered before the race.

It was a bit chilly, before the race, but the sun was out, and it was perfect temperature, for running. Our team did very well. Additionally, we had a mystery person sign up as an NYRC affiliate, who beat everyone else on the team, by almost a minute. Jessica (whoever you are) if that is your way of trying out, you passed. Hahaha.

Yes yes. How many times have I thrown up photos like this one before? Right? As I mentioned earlier this week, my Nike Plus sportband died on me, again. This is the third time it has happened. My cousin Liz suggested that I just abandon the sportband and go with the Garmin. I am almost to that point. I probably would have done just that, if it weren’t for the ever smooth and adept Nike customer service team. That, and the super cool staff at the running store in my building. I called Nike, who quickly trouble shot my watch with me and determined that it was a dud. They suggested that I try returning it where I bought it, before  sending it back to Nike. So I called Urban Athletics, who told me they would trade it straight across, for a new one. So, here we go. Sportband number 4 (pictured above). Treat me right, baby.

Switching gears completely, Reagan and I will be flying out west tomorrow. We have not been to the land of Deseret (yes that is Deseret, not desert), also know as the beehive state, since 2008 for my sister’s wedding. Since that time, one nephew and two nieces have joined the family. We have not met any of them yet. So, we have been anticipating this visit for quite a while.

Reagan and I were having a lot of anxiety about being able to go, because of Piper’s condition. But, it seems like she is on a pretty good plane, at the moment. God willing, things will continue that way, at least until we can return. Additionally, some of our amazing friends have agreed to take care of our car. Our lovely friends, the Alaska/Hofstra missies will be keeping an eye on our pad for us.

We will be taking a notebook computer with us (mostly so Reagan can play the cake building game). But I’m not sure how much posting we will get done over the next week. So, if it tends to be sparse, that is the reason.

Saturday was the first race of 2010 for me. It was a good one to start out the year with, since the weather was beautiful and it was for a good cause (run for Haiti). It was also pretty cool, because it was the first race that our new team “New York Running Club” was listed correctly on the roster/results.

I tried to charge my Nike+ sportband the night before, only to find that it was malfunctioning, again. The display looked like some sort of alien language. Reagan was kind enough to let me borrow hers, since she was sitting this one out. I will be sending it back on Monday Grrrr. The Central Park Races are normally capped at 5000 runners. But since it was for a charity (I guess), they doubled the cap and let 10,000 participants run. It was crrraaazyy. I wasn’t expecting such a crowd, so I showed up at the 9th hour and barely made it starting grid before the gun. As a result, I was way in the back and had no real chance of making it through the pack enough to get a good time. It was ok, though. My friend Mike ran with me, and we just had a relaxing race, and chatted the whole time. It also made me totally pumped for the upcoming running season and nice weather. Woo hoo!

Our Alaska/Hofstra friends also came to visit us, this weekend. Reagan and I pretty much just tagged a long with them through the village to various thrift stores, before hitting Broadway, in SoHo (pretty much Reagan’s dream day). It was a pretty good time, even for me.

We also saw this guy, playing in Washington Square Park. It is the same dude who drags that busted old piano down to the 4th St. A platform in the Subway on the weekends. Pretty awesome.

For the first time in my life, I did karaoke with Reagan and some of our friends, on Saturday night. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I was definitely the worst person in our group. But, that didn’t keep me from having fun watching everyone else. Yes, there was a kick line at one point.

^—Reagan doing up some Abba (I think).

^—-Richard and Jamie: duet of the Cure

^—–Col, melting faces with Yellow Ledbetter.

After our karaoke session, we had some Korean dumplings, then spent some time browsing one of the Koreatown supermarkets. They has some seriously tasty hard candy. No, it didn’t come in the cool fish cans, above (unfortunately). I liked the fish on the cans because they look so friendly.

It has been snowing all day. As usual, the local media totally hyped it, beforehand. Yesterday, NYC public schools preemptively canceled class for today. In fairness, it has been coming down pretty hard, all day, and is still coming down. Even though Reagan and I both had to work, we were both able to leave a lot earlier than normal. I wish that we could have had the whole day off, to be out and about, like our friends Kim and Ryan.  I did get a few snaps of my own, today, mostly on the way out of work.

^—Looking at Battery Park City, from 1 WFC.

^—-1 World Trade Center from the Vesey Street Bridge.

And my favorite, the ever timely snow-heart that someone made on our sidewalk.

It was so cold, last weekend. Some of our friends ran a race in CP, that I was going to go shoot for Examiner, and I totally bailed on it, because it was so cold (I then want back to bed and slept in until after1 pm, hehe). It is still freezing outside (check out the ice flow in the Hudson, above).

I guess that I can’t really complain though. Check out the photo below from Maggie (or Ben), of Georgetown last weekend.

Despite the freezing temperatures, I’m am getting excited for Fashion Week, which begins on Thursday. Plus one of my old HS homies will be in town visiting. We are going to link up for dinner or something.

I have been so freaking bad at running, lately. I haven’t done any running in almost a month. True, Piper has been sick, and I have been sick. But, even when I didn’t have an excuse, I have been extremely bad at keeping with a routine, for this entire winter. Hopefully that will all change, now. Monday, I registered Reagan and myself for this year’s New York City Marathon, in November. We gained automatic entry through the 9+1 program. I have to admit, that the motivation meter was going up a little, just being on the NYRR site, putting in my info.

In addition to running the NYC Marathon, this year. we have also started a club. When I say “we,” I should say Becca. She did almost all of the work. It should be really good for getting in some group runs. Nothing like a little healthy competition, for a pick-me-up. BTW, if you want to be in the club, and are not already on the email list, hit me up. Since we were able to Recruit Carl, I’m pretty sure that we will have the club points championship pretty much in the bag. But, if you would like to be a part of Carl’s entourage, we are currently still recruiting. As of Monday, our name is now officially showing up on the “affiliations” drop down, on the NYRR registration screen. At least it is, if you are registering for the Marathon .

This may sound totally dumb, but, after having so much fun shooting last year’s race, I’m kind of bummed that I can do it again this year. I’m a nerd, I know.

Go NYRC!

People tend to get stir crazy, when they are sick and it is too cold spend any sort of quality time out doors. We do, anyway. Saturday, it was barely in the double digits outside, and it felt even colder because of the wind. Reagan had an appt on the UWS early in the afternoon. I decided to pick her up afterward, so that I could say I had been out of the house, hahaha. When we were trying to figure out what to do for the rest of the evening, I came up with this kind of corny idea about making some miniature ppl and photographing them. There were a few things that I have seen recently that gave me the idea. There was this thing that I saw on Boing Boing. There was also a thing that I saw on a blog kept by some of our acquaintances from Harlem. Finally, let’s not forget this Seth Green-esque weirdness.

So, we stopped by the Michael’s on the UWS and picked up some FIMO, then picked up some burritos at Ch#$%$, and headed home. Kelly, I would like you to know that per your fine fine suggestion, I have now added a burrito tag and category.

We made various little models, so that we could have a few options of scenarios, to shoot.

By the time that we finished building all of the little guys, and baking them in the oven, we were kind of running out of energy to get really fancy with the photos. But, we did have a lot of fun with the underwater scenario (shot in the fish tank). Reagan suspended a little scuba diver and mermaid from some of her hair. Yes, she tied one of her hairs around them (her idea [an awesome one]). Hahahaha. The baby convicts and the gold fish were the funniest part about it. They were so incredibly curious about what was going on, that they are in just about every shot. Look how curious the little convicts are in the shot below, when Reagan first dropped in the mermaid.

Ok, so here is the real ripoff. Our friend Zach always puts together these awesome time-lapse videos of stuff that they do. I have been super curious to try my hand at making one, for a while. I didn’t get very fancy, like he does, with the music and everything. But, if you want to see my first crack at a time-lapse video, click play below, to watch Reagan and I building little Fimo guys.

If you want to check out a few more photos of the Fimo ppl and some other randomness, click through here.

Piper had a pretty uneventful day, Saturday. Being that she tends to become agitated and de-sat when she is awake, she was kept a bit more sedated. The doctors took another X-ray of her in the evening, which came back almost the same as it was Thursday. Although we would have liked to have had it clear up a little bit by now, there are a few other things that have indicated that she is at least moving in the right direction. One thing, is that her white blood cell count has come down. That generally means that her body isn’t having to battle the infection as hard anymore. We have also been told that her blood-gas readings are still becoming progressively better.

I can’t help but think how lucky we are to live within walking distance to one of the world’s best children’s hospitals. It is so amazing to be able to come home and sleep in our own beds, and know that if something crazy happened, in the middle of the night, we could be right there in 5 minutes. We are always so impressed with the way that Piper’s doctors and nurses at Columbia have treated her and us, during her time spent there. Truly, enough can’t be said to praise them for what they do.

These are also the times that we realize how incredibly fortunate we are, to have such amazingly supportive family and friends. Even though we are so far from our families, they have done an excellent job of letting us know that they are there for us (and would be here for us, in the flesh, if we so much as made the request).

Saturday night we took a break from the hospital and  spent some time with some of our friends, having dinner, and just hanging out for a bit. It was so nice to have a little bit of a break from hospital. It was also nice for both Reagan and myself to be able to talk to some people face to face, besides each other, or nurses and doctors. Heheheh. Not that we don’t love spending time together, and chatting it up. But I’m sure that you can imagine, the conversations have been pretty heavy for the last few days. It tends to wear a person out.

Thanks again for all of the thoughts, prayers and positive vibes.